


a whole new life

by vibranium



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Mention of Nick Fury - Freeform, Mention of Phil Coulson - Freeform, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibranium/pseuds/vibranium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They said that tasting blood in your mouth upon meeting your soulmate is not uncommon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a whole new life

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to my beautiful Goose for being the perfect beta ♥

They said that tasting blood in your mouth upon meeting your soulmate is not uncommon. The strange, tangy metallic taste fills your mouth when soulmates meet and speak for the first time. Your soulmate is the person who will anger you, support you, question you and make you question yourself. They will ruin who you were before. They will create a seemingly defined ‘before’ and ‘after,’ a fissure in your mind to separate the time of your life that you spent without them.

 

They will fight you, they will back you up, they will hold you, they will challenge you, they will hate you at times, and love you at others.

 

Except that Clint was told that it was an old wives’ tale, nothing to actually believe in. A brief flash of memory tries to become more, pushing into his mind further and further, trying to break his focus so he can remember that damn girl from the carnival, telling him all about the ‘gross, icky blood’ everyone would taste one day if they were lucky. The memory tries to make itself more known while he checks the insides of his cheeks with his tongue, because he doesn’t remember biting hard enough on the flesh to bleed.

 

He tastes the blood just as he’s got an arrow knocked and pointed at the heart of his mark. He tastes the blood and looks at her hair and it’s the color that he’s tasting, a red so bright it could be blinding. He tastes the blood and listens to little Natalia Romanova telling him, “Kill me, then. Get it over with and kill me,” while she tastes it too, sharp and scary and making her remember being punished for talking about soulmates, because a Black Widow has no ties, cares for nothing, loves no one.

 

 

 _But maybe she can_ , Natalia thinks when that stupid, stupid man that’s making her taste blood tells her that if she puts down her guns, he’ll lower his bow. He’s claiming that he can offer her a whole new life, get her out of the clutches of the KGB, bring her back to _his_ home, America, the land of the free.

 

Isn’t that what she wants? She’s been told for so long that she is nothing, she is just one of the group, and while she may be the best that they have, their best little warrior (killer, _murderer_ , her mind reminds her, and these are words that shouldn’t be associated with someone her age), she is still worth nothing. No one cares for her; no one will love her, or have her best interest in mind. But now she’s tasting the blood while this man is telling her about this new organization that strives for world peace, taking out the bad guys (is she one of them? Of course she is; with that arrow aimed right for her heart, she knows she is a threat to this organization the stupid, stupid man is talking about).

 

She wants to go, though. In her naïve mind, she _wants_ to go with this man whose name she doesn’t even know, but he knows hers, he says he knows so much about her because he’s been looking for her for so long, tracking her down (to kill her, to take her life because she is a _threat_ to him, a little girl a threat to a man who looks ten years her major).

 

Natalia can’t get the stories out of her head. She can’t stop hearing Yelena whispering to her, as quiet as she can, that tasting blood when someone speaks to you for the first time, that whole first time you two talk, means that they’re your soulmate, the person you’re meant to be with forever and ever.

 

She can’t stop hearing Yelena crying out in pain until she dissolves into whimpers, then silence, while she is punished for talking about such things. She can’t stop feeling that pain herself. The scars on her back sting and burn while she remembers.

 

That taste is still there, though. And what if Yelena was right? What is this stupid man with his stupid bow that is pointing to her _stupid_ heart is meant to be her soulmate?

 

So Natalia puts her guns down. Even removes the magazines. If it is her time to die at the hands of the man making her taste sweet, metallic blood, a taste that fills and floods her mouth, she will at least know that she met her soulmate. And truth be told, she’d been dreaming about that day since Yelena told her so, so quietly in their room, and had even dreamed about it while she was punished.

 

The bow lowers once her guns are on the ground, dusted with snow in some town she’d been running through in Belarus, and she holds her hands up above her shoulders in surrender. She tells herself to remember the taste in her mouth while he restrains her, being surprisingly gentle and considerate, mumbling to himself about how he’s “going to be in such deep shit with Coulson and Fury.”

 

She hopes Yelena was right. That the punishment was worth it. Because these names, Coulson and Fury. Phillip Coulson, Nicholas J. Fury, she _knows_ these names, knows they’re associated with that American organization named S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D sent this man to track her down and kill her, because she is a threat, and she knows all about them. They are meant to be her enemy. But she goes with this man anyway.

 

The blood tastes somehow infinitely sweeter when he tells her, admist his worried rambling, “Oh, and my name is Clint Barton. Did you know that already? I hope you didn’t. It would be cooler if it was a big surprise.”

 

Natalia smiles, and it’s genuine for the first time in a real long time. _Soulmates_. What a funny notion.


End file.
